Mike Darnell
Birthday: Born in 1962-05-18 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Deathday: Alive
Michael Darnell is an American entertainment executive. As president of Alternative Entertainment at the Fox network and subsequently president of Unscripted Television at Warner Bros., Darnell was in charge of some of the most successful and longest-running franchises in television history, including American Idol, The Bachelor franchise, The Voice, Family Guy, Futurama, Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, MasterChef, Little Big Shots, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, So You Think You Can Dance, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, The Simple Life, Temptation Island, and many more. When he was 12, his family moved to California, where he eventually appeared in, or voiced-over, some sixty commercials. He also appeared in TV episodes such as Sanford and Son, Welcome Back, Kotter and Kojak. Later he worked as a bank teller to help pay his way through Cal State-Northridge. He also played piano at a night spot. Soon after graduating, he had an internship at Entertainment Tonight, which he says he "hated", before he started working at Fox's West Coast flagship station KTTV, within their news department.
TV Credits
Big John, Little John
Character: Ricky Martin
A middle-aged schoolteacher transforms into a 12-year-old boy at inopportune moments....
Teachers Only
Character:
Teachers Only is an NBC television sitcom centered around the faculty of a high school; in the first season the school was Millard Fillmore High in Los Angeles, but in the second it is Woodrow Wilson High in New York with a changed cast. In both seasons Norman Fell played Principal Ben Cooper, but Lynn Redgrave's character, Diana Swanson, who had been an English teacher in the first season, became a guidance counselor in the second season. Redgrave and Fell were already established names when t...
Kojak
Character: Nick
A bald, lollipop sucking police detective with a fiery righteous attitude battles crime in New York City....
Knots Landing
Character: Fred
The domestic adventures, misdeeds and everyday interactions of five families living on a cul-de-sac in a small California community....
Movie Credits
The Violation of Sarah McDavid
Character: Andy
Sarah McDavid, an idealistic young teacher, takes a job in a rough high school where she is eventually attacked and raped in her classroom after school hours and decides to buck the school system in an attempt to make schools safer for students and teachers alike, against the advice of the school's principal, Dr. Keys, who tries to gloss over the hazardous conditions and the incident itself to avoid bad publicity and decreased enrollment....